Watch Out!!!!

 

 

I read this 20 times a day and it's still not enough

 

I am centered..my mind and body are one…my soul is at peace with the universe.

I want to believe this stuff, but it is almost impossible on days like today. The only thing I have to look forward too is capoeira class, but in order to get to it I have to face the brilliant people I work with. These are the people that fear logic, leave their work on my desk and constantly make excuses for not doing their job. I want to believe people are generally good, but these people are starting to make me re think that position. My day has included interactions with-

• Diseased colon guy that never flushes the toilet and leaves the most horrendous smelling logs afloat in them. (FLUSH!)
• Republican guy that insists our last president was a genius  (Please do not have kids)
• Old man and woman who forget where they put things and blame it on me and technology. (Retire already)
• Divorced lady who hates all men and refuses to even acknowledge men exist. (There is a divorced guy upstairs that thinks you are pretty)
• Executive level guy that smells like sardines all the time even though he says he never eats fish (Do you own cats?)
• Mid life crisis guy that pops the  collar on his shirts and is always calling everyone cutie (Dye your eyebrows too not just your hair)
• Bald white guy with the hair piece that looks like an afro (File a lawsuit against Hairclub for Men)
• Mom with 500 pictures of her kid stuck to every free piece of wall in our office ( Your kid looks like Mickey Rourke after plastic surgery.)
• The big guy that eats pizza  for breakfast, lunch and dinner and says he has a thyroid condition (The medical condition is called extra cheese.)
• 2nd amendment guy that always talks about his guns and tells me I am his friend and not to worry if he flips out one day.  (Medication can help.)
• Booger guy that always has a finger in his nose. (Stop picking your nose it’ll start bleeding)
• 5 boyfriend girl that is constantly receiving flowers, teddy bears, and candy from different guys every other day (How do you do it and why?)
• Obnoxious guy that believes everyone at work, works for him (Tell your wife to stop asking me if I like massages when she calls.)

The day will eventually end, and I know Iwill once again be back tomorrow.  The only thing that brings me comfort are the mental images of me doing rasterias on these people. Watch out people the only thing that was stopping me from making this  dream a reality was the sign shown above, which I have been told I have to take off the wall.

5 boyfriend girl-The raspberry flavored gum was from me…. coffee later?

Get Naked And Prepare To Be Baptized

Inbox- ….I have been reading a lot about the baptism in capoeira. Some of the stuff they talk about reminds me of my pledge days with my fraternity…do I have to do anything special to get baptized?

Sent-Fortunately for you we just modified our batizado practices for new capoeristas. You will no longer be required to mate with a goat nor swallow live gold fish. However, it is still mandatory that you run around the block several times, naked,  screaming “Bimba.”

Seriously, there is a lot of ritual associated with batizados, but none of them are harmful or embarrassing.  Different groups have different ways of baptizing new students. Generally speaking, batizados are relatively tame and are merely an opportunity to greet a new student to a group. They are lots of fun and you get to interact with a lot of senior capoeristas from other groups.

Pastry Immigration

Let this be a lesson to future baked goods.

This morning after capoeira, I went to the grocery store to buy some ginger.  I’ve had a sore throat and a cough for a few days (no Soldado it is not swine flu) and my mestre recommended drinking tea made by boiling ginger root.

I went to the grocery store, headed to the produce section, found a suitable chunk of ginger, and put it in my basket.  Then a strange thing happened.  I walked straight from the produce section to the checkout but somehow when I arrived at the checkout, there was also a chocolate cupcake in my basket.  It had obviously jumped in there when I wasn’t looking, thinking that it could smuggle itself out of the store that way.

I knew what had to be done.  Some people might think it is harsh, but sometimes justice requires a stern will.  The cupcake had to be punished for its attempt to flout the law and stow away in my bag, so I ate it, to set an example for the other cupcakes.

Baked goods: please stop jumping into my groceries when I am not looking. Why can’t you be more like the vegetables?  They always stay on their shelves!

Kiss The Melon

Contra Mestre Careba of Capoeira Gerais, friends and students.

Two days until my first school dance. I had already begged my mom for new shoes and a matching shirt to go with them. All of my friends were going to meet at my house before the dance to splash on some of my dad’s favorite cologne. The girls at the dance wouldn’t stand a chance against my dad’s cologne. It was a limited edition Old Spice that was sold at the corner pharmacy. All the planning was done and then my friend Juan dropped a bomb on all of us. Juan asked, “what if they try to kiss us?” We all looked at each other and though we lied about it daily in the school yard, we all knew the truth; none of us had ever kissed a girl. I am not sure if it was Tony or Michael who said it first, but one of them stated their big brother practiced on a piece of fruit and it made him a great kisser. Not wanting to let the girls down we pooled our money and after school bought a green melon.  There we sat on a bench in the park making out with that melon. People walked by and stared, but we didn’t mind, we couldn’t let all those girls down. That dance came and went. We never did get a kiss at that dance and Juan the one that gave us all that “great” idea, found out he was allergic to honey dew melons. 

My friend who introduced me to capoeira gave me a used berimbau many years ago. It is always there for me to practice on when I need too. The problem is there are other instruments that are used in capoeira. Sure, a pandeiro (tamborine) isn’t that expensive, but an atabaque is really hard to find at a reasonable price. Then I saw it, my mestre was using old plastic paint containers as practice instruments for the children’s class. These containers when held between the legs act as a nice surface to practice rhythms with your hands. With a little imagination smaller and varied shaped containers can even act as a pandeiros. Once again I am “kissing the melon”; only this time they are empty plastic containers.

Superbuff  - You do not need a expensive gym or equipment to get a great total body workout. Running and walking are two of the best and free ways to burn calories. Instead of weights, look towards household items like cans and vacuum cleaners to add resistance to your squats and lunges. The good old push is a great upper body conditioner and is also free of charge. Want to work your abs,  just find a melon  or another similar object and perform crunches while holding it to your chest.

 

-Juan I am sorry for hitting your back so hard, I thought you were choking on a gumball. I didn’t know your throat was swelling shut from the melon bro.

I Am Breaking Up With You

I know this isn’t the best way to break up with you, but I really don’t want to get into a long drawn out argument about this. You are so sweet it breaks my heart even typing this right now.  We met a long time ago, I think 10 or 12 years ago to be exact. We have spent holidays and birthdays together and its going to be hard not to see you again.You are perfect in every way.  The problem in the relationship is mine not yours. 

I know you are going to say I am too jealous and possessive, but the only time I got into an argument over you was when I saw my room mate touching you inappropriately that night. Who wouldn’t be upset to see someone else handling  their possession like that. No, you are not a possession, but you do belong to me. I have never cheated on you.  Sure, occasionally I looked at others at the grocery store, but guys are like that. We do not mean anything by it, it’s just our nature. You taught me things about my body that I never knew. You helped me grow in so many ways I can’t even begin to list them.

Please this is hard for both of us. Do not call my name if you see me at the store. Every time this happens I take you back, but this time I mean it- I AM DONE!!!

I have to be honest, there is someone else. Do you remember finding that banana peel in the trash? It wasn’t the first time. It has happened several times over the last couple of weeks. I really believe I am truly in love this time. Goodbye and good luck. I am sure you will find someone else.

Superbuff – No amount of working out will help you get ripped abs if you eat a lot of processed foods. Try avoiding unhealthy and excessive amounts of carbohydrates and focus on eating healthy unprocessed foods and tons of vegetables. Drink water!!

 

Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about the threesome we did with the cookies and apple pie.

Please Spank Me

Class picture after one of Instructor Tarzan's classes

There was a time when corporal punishment was as much a part of the educational system as math or social studies. Teachers from my youth used it to motivate, wake up, and discipline students under their charge.  It was not unusual for a teacher to dole out a couple of preventive maintenance whacks to an unsuspecting student, just to to remind the others not to cause  problems during class.  The teachers and principals always had cool names for the paddles they used to hit students with. Some of my favorites were:

Board of Education ( This was our Principal’s paddle. It was a recycled pizza board, and when he hit you with it, you could still smell pepperoni.)

The Silencer (The teacher who used this paddle talked about his time in Vietnam as a soldier.)

Hand of God (During my youth we could still use religious terminology in the classrooms, and this teacher would say the lord’s prayer while striking you.)

The Teacher’s Little Helper (This was Mrs. Davis’s favorite paddle. It had a bronze handle.)

Hearing Aid (This one was the size of a ping pong table and the teacher loved asking kids who were asleep if they heard what she just said.)

Then there was Mrs. Hart’s paddle. Her paddle was her hand. She was sweet lady who I am sure had been a beauty queen during her high school years. I sat at my desk many times, daydreaming of marrying her and getting straight A’s in English for the rest of my life. Sure there would be an age difference, but I was sure we could overcome it, just as long as she made Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes for me everyday.  Young boys often created trouble just to get hit by her. She never really put any force behind the hits, and she would start apologizing as soon as she disciplined us. 

So I sit here today, trying to finish another spreadsheet for one of the 5′000 projects that has been dumped in my lap by one of 15 different bosses. I cannot focus. I am not motivated and I am on a strict time line. I need help!!!!!

-Mrs. Hart please call me, I will be bent over my desk waiting for you.

Superbuff Board of Education workout-Complete 1o push ups, 10 mountain climbers, 10 crunches, 1o stationary lunges, 10 squats, and 10 chair dips. Repeat this circuit 5 times with 2 minutes break in between each set.

Weightlifting without a Y Chromosome

There are many kinds of people who frequent the gym, but most of them fall into a few well-known categories.  There are the grunting free-weight guys, the Cosmo-reading-on-the-elliptical girls, the dude-you-got-this spotting teams.  I belong to the species of girls who bench press, and based on the reactions I get while doing this, we must be a rare group.

Today I arrived at the gym a little before 9, to get in a quick workout before moving on with my day.  I like to start my workout with the bench press.  I like it because it works a lot of muscles, so that after that everything is a bit fatigued burning with the fire of a thousand suns (just realized Soldado will be reading this) and I can move on to more targeted exercises.

The gym looked the way it usually does at 9 on a Saturday morning: one or two dedicated girls running on the treadmills, and a handful of retirees walking on treadmills or gingerly going through the motions on the circuit training machines.

I walked over to the bench press and began adding my usual weights.  I only add 7.5 or 10 pounds to each side, so it’s nothing terribly outrageous-looking.  Or even impressive-looking.  Frankly, the bar looks kind of ridiculous with such puny weights on it.

I had just finished doing this when a man who had to be at least 70 approached me.  In a thick German accent, he said “Let me know if ze bar is too much, and I will help you with it”.

I looked at this frail, thin, elderly man with white hair.  Beyond the fact that I, shockingly, know what I’m doing with the bench press and don’t need help, this guy would have been about as useful as a cocktail umbrella in a rainstorm.

Thanks Grandpa, but me and my vagina will manage the bench press just fine!

Bring It On, and Other Things I Should Never Say to People

People get motivation to work out from many sources– workout buddies, beach season, unhealthy relationships, heart-rending breakups.  My motivation comes from trash-talking.

One of the benefits of moving across the country and training with a different capoeira group is experiencing a new style, a new teacher, and making new friends.  But an equally important, and often overlooked, benefit is that you can call your old capoeira friends and tell them how cool your new group is and how much you are learning and that you are going to knock them all down when you come back to visit.

This works great because then you have to train really hard or risk being knocked all over the place when you actually do go visit.  There’s really nothing like the fear of bodily harm and public humiliation when it comes to motivation.

Lookout Tucson, I just booked my tickets and I’m gonna knock you down!

Superbuff “Uh-oh” workout: 3 mile run, bench press, situps, pushups, and lots of cocorinhos for ducking under all the kicks that are about to come your way.

Capoeira Changes Everyday

 

My dear friends Rosa (pictured above) and her husband Instructor Bae of Oficina Da Capoeira introduced me to capoeira. THANK YOU!!!!!!!

Greg and I were inseparable during junior high school. He was my best friend. Greg spent a lot of time around my mom’s house, and it wasn’t unusual for him to stay over 2-3 nights a week.  His mother worked for a company that kept her travelling the majority of the year. His grandmother was his primary care giver and she didn’t mind him staying over, because it gave her a chance to enjoy her retirement. She loved Greg, but boys are are a handful at that age. Greg’s dad and mom divorced many years earlier and he didn’t have a father figure around to guide him through those critical years, so Greg was always getting into trouble at school. His mom did the best she could, but she was trying to maintain a good living for herself and her son. Like so many other people in our lives, Greg moved away from our town and I eventually lost contact with him. I always wonder how he is doing these days. There are so many things I want to tell him. 

Greg if you are reading this, I did go to the college we always talked about, and yes it was a lot of fun. I have been to 5 out the 7 places we said we would  visit, and I did go skydiving. Well it wasn’t actually skydiving, I jumped out of planes in the military. I hope you had a chance to live out the dreams we had back in junior high school.

I was discussing capoeira with another student last night. I had noticed he was performing an esquiva in a different way than I had been taught to do it. He had previously trained with another group and they were shown this esquiva by their instructor.  I walked over to Ze and asked him why there were so many different ways to perform capoeira moves.  Ze said that each mestre’s capoeira has certain things in common, but the capoeira they teach will be influenced by their individual personalities. He also explained that as capoeira grows, new movements will be seen and the older movements will be modified. Ze stated it was important to maintain the traditional elements of capoeira throughout these changes. “The body of capoeira might change, but never change the heart of it,” he said.

Superbuff Evolution workout-

Start your workout with 15 minutes on the elliptical machine set on maximum resistance. Then move over to the treadmill and complete 15 mins at a slow jog. Take a 5 minute break. Repeat this on both machines. Take another 5 minute break and repeat one last time while changing the resistance and elevation settings on both machines. Stretch afterwards.

 Greg your mom was hot!!!! Is She still single?

Is there a missed connections for the gym?

In capoeira, we train our reflexes so that when kicks and other moves come at us in the roda, we can react in time to respond smoothly and smartly.  People describe capoeira as a conversation, in which the moves are questions and responses between two people.  Despite all this training in communication, sometimes outside of the roda (and in it too, let’s be honest) my conversational reflexes fail me.

A couple of weeks ago I was driving home from capoeira and decided to stop in at the gym on my way home and do some pushups and situps and things before going home.  I was there in my capoeira stuff sitting on a bench resting between sets of tricep dips when a guy walked past me and said something, and then walked out the gym door.

I think he may have said “Tchau”.  I think he may have been wearing yellow or light green sneakers.  I think he may have been cute.  Unfortunately, I had my headphones in and it happened very fast, and I can’t be sure of any of this.I had sort-of an impulse to run out the door and yell “Fala portugues?” into the night, but decided that even if this mystery guy was cute and did fala portugues, maybe “girl who yells things in the street” wasn’t the impression I wanted to convey.

Then school and my grades resumed their conversation with me, and I forgot about this incident until tonight, when after finishing a paper early I decided to head to the gym.  I had just finished situps and was switching to pushups when I saw a pair of greenish-yellowish sneakers that looked familiar.  Then I remembered that night a few weeks ago.  Was this the guy?

Before I could ask, he had hopped on a stationary bike on the other side of the room.  Not wanting to interrupt with my possibly-weird question (what if it wasn’t the guy?) in the midst of cycling (hard to have a conversation), I kept doing my thing: pushups, situps, kickbacks, tricep dips, leg lifts, back flys, batmans, etc thinking that maybe I could outlast cycle-time and make my move.

Green-sneakers appears to be training for the Tour De France, however, because I went through all my standard workout things and he was still pedaling away.  I was running out of exercises, and my muscles were starting to have a rather angry conversation with me.  Finally, I saw him slow to a stop.  Yes!  Here was my chance!  All I had to do was put my weights away, walk slowly to the water fountain and loiter there, and he would have to pass me on his way out!  The mystery was about to be solved!  I meandered over to the fountain, took a long drink, and then casually stretched and glanced across the room… just in time to see mystery guy WALK OUT A DIFFERENT DOOR.

Superbuff moral: Always know the locations of all available exits, in case of fire or cute mystery men.

Superbuff “do you come here often” workout: 100 situps, 100 pushups, 100 kickbacks, 100 tricep dips.  5 sets each of tricep extensions, leg lifts, side ab curls, batmans, and back flys.  Think about stretching, but instead get a 10lb weight and alternate 10 reps each side on the roman chair.  Repeat until muscle or conversational failure.